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User blog:Fovosi Laet/Why is Winnehild so strong?
The answer lays in the nitty gritty details, and is a combination of many things. Her base stats, the nature of physical attacks in general, the timing of attacks, and the functionality of the break system. I'd recommend keeping Winnehild's wiki page open for clarity. Balogar , Steorra , and Dreisang will also be referenced. This will basically be a lecture about boss design so bear with me. To start, there's the obvious thing to point out. Winnehild has the highest HP out of all of the 4 secret bosses, and is the only one to break the 200k mark. Being the Warbringer, she is also themed around all things physical, having the highest physical strength and defense. Her break sheilds are also the most numbers, capping out at 12. While Steorra may also have 12, she only has that many when vulnerable to spears and bows, meaning she is susceptible to Rain of Arrows and Thousand Spears. Winnehild meanwhile is only weak to staves and various forms of magic, meaning the most shields that can be taken from her is 4 with a max boost normal staff attack, or 6 with a sorcerer and the aid of Aelfric's Auspices. This makes her the most durable of the secret 4 secret bosses, only being rivaled by Balogar's pre-runestorm stance. When it comes to the raw strength, Winnehild is also the strongest. While almost every attack does "standard" physical damage, that is a still a lot of damage, on top of the added effects, including Pheonix Storm hitting multiple times, Yatagarasu hittings twice and poisoning, Fox Spirit inflicting unconsciousness, and Quilin's Horn hitting multiple times. A move like Tiger Rage on the other hand doesn't have such an effect, but hits very hard. Guardian Liondog also inflicts heavy physical damage, and Counter Strike inflicts extreme physical damage. In terms of raw damage, Winnehild can easily dish out the most hurt of any of the secret bosses. She can hurt so much that turtling strategies are often completely ineffective, especially when she increases her turn count per turn to 3. Aside from the Transfer Rune + Sidestep strategy, which requires fighting and defeating Balogar, the player must hybridize a defensive and offensive strategy in order to success, usually involving a Hired Help merchant + Shackle Foe combo. Speaking of that, Winnehild will increase her turn count to 3 per turn upon emoting Winnehild Summoned Three Weapons!, but will only do so by using a turn that is not a break response turn. What's a break response? Well I'll explain and illustrate it. Basically, a break response is when an enemy will script a specific move or series of moves to use upon recovering from a break. For Winnehild, that means the first turn emoting Winnehild Stands Imposingly Before You ''and increasing her shield count, or by substituting it with an attack once it reaches 12. While she has 2 turns per turn, that looks like this diamonds are allies, red diamonds are enemy + break response, orange diamonds are normal enemy turn which will be in later This is important, because once Winnehild's shields reach 12, the first turn is replaced with an attack, but still counts as a break response. The second turn on the other hand no longer depends on the action took on the first turn increase + Pheonix Storm, and can be any move in her arsenal. This makes it possible for her to use ''Winnehild Summoned Three Weapons!, as a break response. Compare this to Steorra, who has a similar action Steorra's Body Grows as Light as Air, ''which is the exact same thing on paper. However, Steorra always reserves her 2 break responses for changing weaknesses + Shooting Star. This makes it possible to trap her in a loop where she cannot use her other attacks or enhancements. Winnehild only reserves 1 break response for an attack, the rest can be almost anything. When Winnehild's technically Steorra's turn count increases to 3, the turn order and type looks like this instead The last turn is a normal turn instead of a break response. This matters most because when she is at <25% health, she will emote ''Behold The Ultimate Warrior!, which is an indicator that she is about to use War Cry. In order to set up for War Cry, or really for any boss setting up for their ultimate, they can only emote on their last turn, but can't use it as part of a break response. It can only be done as part of a normal turn after their attack. For Dreisang and Steorra, this makes it possible for the player to completely skip their ultimates. Only Balogar and Winnehild are capable of using theirs at the end of their first turn upon recoverying from a break. Speaking of War Cry though, that's the biggest problem for a lot of first timers. The other boss's ultimates aren't particularly hard to remove. Dreisang and Steorra have weaknesses the player was able to identify earlier in the fight, and Balogar is always susceptible to Rain of Arrows upon activating Runestorm. But not with Winnehild. There are several factors at play as to why this is much more effective than the others bosses. Firstly, she can set up for a War Cry after recovering from a break, meaning her shield count will be a full 12. That's quite a few to take down. Secondly, one her 2 break responses preferentially include Quilin's Horn, and the normal turn succeeding them is preferentially Counter Position. This both softens up the party by removing any defense buffs they may have, and makes the max boost attack result in her using Counter Strike, while is almost always a one shot. The player then has to make the choice of whether to make that sacrifice, and whether or not to try to break her or reestablish party defenses. Thirdly, and most significantly, Winnehild will shift her weaknesses to a second set upon emoting, which cannot be learned by the player ahead of time without an outside source or by attempting the fight multiple times. This leaves the player without any apparent break options. While 3 of the new weaknesses are the last 3 forms of magic, the 1st in the sequence is a sword, so is not susceptible to any accessible multi-hitting physical attacks. This puts the player in a very awkward spot where they have a limited number of turns to figure out what to do, and can no longer rely on a leghold strategy as a guaranteed means of breaking her. The War Cry itself is also devastatingly powerful, being 6 consecutive heavy hits to the entire party, almost always resulting in a party wipe. No other ultimate from any boss in the game is as potent. So what makes this more difficult to manage than the ultimates of the other bosses? Well for Balogar, he has two significant weaknesses, the dagger and the bow, both of which are knowable likely already known by the player. This makes him vulnerable to not just Rain of Arrows, but also Steal SP/HP, guaranteeing at least 5 shield hits, leaving 4 left, which can be dealt with by a single ally. Only the Cleric and Warrior classes can't do 4 shields worth to Balogar in a single turn. For Dreisang, he doesn't really have an ultimate outside of Extreme Elemental Augmentation, which doesn't change how his spells interact with Reflect Veil, which is the most popular way of defeating him. It's also possible to keep him from using it by keeping him in a constant break cycle and only letting him act on break responses. As he cannot use his ultimate as a break response, his shield count will almost always be below the cap 10 if he gets to act on a normal turn, making him easier to break if needed. For Steorra, it's also possible to skip her ultimate by keeping her in a constant break cycle. She cannot use her ultimate as part of a break response, and if she does get to set up for it, her shield counts are often below cap varies for that specific set of weaknesses, all of which can be known ahead of time. There are many things that go into designing difficult RPG bosses. Sure, high base stats are a contributor, but the structure of how and when Winnehild uses her arsenal is a much bigger factor into why she's much more difficult than the other bosses, at least according to general consensus. Some may argue it's cheap to give the boss such a powerful ultimate and make their weaknesses unknown at the same time, but I'd say that's a problem in the general player not building a modular strategy. It's possible to survive a War Cry head on, and the tools needed to do so don't require a highly specialized strategy. Category:Blog posts